Day 5 Dinner at KI's

Tonight we dined at KI's in Del Mar, a little bit of a nicer place, in a very beautiful setting. After VBS this morning we all kind of split up a little bit, some people went to enjoy the beach at Del Mar, others, like myself stayed at the hotel, and took a nap, or a dip in the pool, or went shopping at a nearby plaza. It was a rejuvenating afternoon.

KI's was pretty delicious and had a great view, especially for the sunset. Gunnar, his wife Anna, Anna's sister Maria, and the wonderful miss grace joined us for dinner as well, which was really great and uplifting. 

Here is part of the table, forgot to get the other part because alot of people got up to go to the beach while waiting for their food.



there was like a floodlight out on the ocean and it gave me some really cool lighting, here is the outcome, this was at like 8:30 p.m. San Diego Time.

La Jolla Shores w/ Barabbas road church

Doing some relational ministry with Barabbas Road Church was quite different than what we've been doing the past couple of days, besides being at the beach :) .

We combed the beach passing out flyers for the church and their offer for free personal training at a park near their church, and it was hard at first because most people were not receptive. Another problem we ran into was distinguishing the locals from the tourists, not that we don't want to show christ to people who don't live in San Diego, its just our focus for that day was to build bridges to the church, which would be hard for a tourist to really get involved with. I will go ahead and admit that I didn't have the same amount of courage to approach strangers like BJ, Jen, & Cathy had, though I think I got a little better at it near the end.

Where we played soccer with barabbas road church

Orit & Associate Pastor Paul

fighting for the soccer ball

Most everyone playing some soccer, I believe on bermuda grass,

real comfortable.

It was pretty cool just getting to eat dinner and hang out with some of the people involved with barabbas road church, hear some of their stories, and pray with them. By the way, while prayer is on your minds, pray for our friend Orit (pronounced  Ore-Eat) she is going through alot, actually alot of things that us back in fort mitchell don't have to really face, I'll leave it at that, thanks in advance for lifting her up to the Lord.

It is more beautiful on the beach.

BJ & Jen Enjoying the sunset.

What a way to end our day, watching the sun go to sleep. It was kind of hard leaving the beach when it looked that beautiful, but it set quickly, so we ran out of sunlight, and called it a night after praying with our new friends.

First Day of VBS @ Valley

A beautiful day @ Valley Baptist

Sorry to be updating about the first day so late, but I napped a lot earlier today when it would have been easiest to update the blog, so sorry for being a little negligent.

First off, the numbers for VBS haven't been all that strong, but its been great growing closer to another church family  that is over 2000 miles away from home.

Most of our time in the morning is laid back, but still really rewarding. We are looking forward to some of the next few days, with hopefully more kids, and also looking forward to the block party, should be a blast. Here are some more pictures for your enjoyment.

sponge relay

This is actually from sunday, but its chandler

blowing up some of the inflatables.

Going through a lesson

Justine, one of the cutest girls in valley center

Grace, one of the other cutest girls in valley center

Russell, leading the kids, and no he's not dancing, because we are baptist, 

he's moving interpretively.

First off, I could get used to this..... supposedly its even more beautiful on the beach, which we will find out tomorrow night.
We had a lovely dinner with the Hispanic parish of Valley Baptist, who worship on sunday nights at the church. They made us Chicken Molle, it was quite wonderful ( maybe I should have taken a picture of it? though that wouldn't have done it justice).
We stuck around after dinner for some of their worship, it was really quite the blessing, hearing the Lord being praised in a language different than your own.

Us enjoying our delicious dinner, we get some more mexicano authentico on thursday!



This is Alberto here leading worship, he is a really great/solid dude, I look forward to seeing him more this week, his wife did a lot of the cooking for our dinner, and his son Albert had some great stories for us (he also helped us "borrow" some oranges from the nearby grove, don't tell though).

A day at Valley Baptist......

Today was kind of a long day, but nothing out of the ordinary for most of us here being used to how full our sundays are at FMBC. We led worship at Valley Baptist this morning, and that was a pretty cool experience. I think we outnumbered them in attendance, and it was kind of humorous that a lot of their congregation was out of town the week we are here, but they still had I think three visitors! which is pretty awesome for them. The whole "community" aspect of their church is so strongly evident, and I think we knew that well before we joined them for a service, back in february when me, Joby & Russell got some of the fine details hashed out for the trip, it felt like Gunnar was trying to introduce us to all of his members in the two days we were there, you could tell he had a genuine interest in their lives. 

Speaking of Gunnar, here he is with his wife Anna and beautiful daughter Grace.

more to come, and more pictures, I promise.

more pictures.....

I don't know what it is, but blogger sometimes doesn't like helping me put pictures up!

Russell found some treasure?

Wondering if its worth getting into the water with how cold it was, 

the answer was yes, just not for these guys/gals.

jordan "testing" the water

The Good doctor, with his game face on

Day two....continued

Here are a few more pictures from yesterday for your enjoyment......

BJ looking quite dapper

Matthew Enjoying the pacific.

Day two..... preparing the way

We started off our day today  at the USS Midway Museum, a retired aircraft carrier. We could have spent hours there going through the extensive structure, but I think we only spent three hours there, counting lunch, we had the beach on our minds! We ventured off to Coronado Island, a kind of private beach, but larger than the one we visited yesterday. It was a bit overcast today so it was a little cooler out, and the water was quite cold as well, but still very enjoyable, the waves beat me up a bit more than they did yesterday, but Austin, Matthew, Chandler, Tyler, Jordan, & BJ seemed to have no trouble with them.

Coronado is a very beautiful place, but just by the surrounding atmosphere and houses, you can just tell how much they value material possessions and image.  I plan on posting more pictures from today, but the blogger website doesn't like me right now, so I'll post some more tomorrow. But Later in the evening we had dinner at Valley Baptist, had some fellowship, and those of us playing music tomorrow ran through our set, and then we had a brief devotion/run through of the next day. Tomorrow will be mostly composed of planning/decorating/preparing for VBS, after church ends at twelve. Again be praying for us and the work God will be doing here, I promise we aren't here just to go to the beach and sight see like we have been for the past two days (though that doesn't sound like a bad idea!).

Most of us made it here safely!

Don't be alarmed by the title of this blog, I just mean we aren't all quite here yet. Today was a great day, for me and Angel we caught the first standby flights we could get in Dayton, and Denver, so we were in San Diego by like 9:45 a.m. their time. BJ & Jen Sanders got to spend time with their old youth pastor today who actuallyworks at a church in Palm Springs, so we didn't catch up with them till later in the evening to get dinner. Saundra's flight was right on time and showed up at the hotel maybe an hour after we got there (atleast thats what they tell me, I was asleep at this point I think) . After a much needed nap, Me, Cathy, Angel, Saundra, Austin, Jordan, and Tyler went to a nearby beach, the water was cold at first but nice, it was pretty cool to still see little instances God was ready to use us by interacting with the locals, even on one of our "free" days. The Rowland's have still yet to ROLL in, ha ha catch that pun? they are taking a more scenic route from the LAX airport, but they will be joining us in the morning to partake in some more leisurely activities. 

Tonight we ate at a restaraunt called "Old California Mining Co" it was really good, and a fun experience. There was this ridiculously large chocolate cake that I ordered, and kind of shared with everyone, though that still didn't make a big dent in it. 

Looking forward to our upcoming work with Valley Baptist Church, and Barabbas Road Church.

We are all on our way to san diego!

Hey Everyone, its thursday night, and I'm awaiting going to go see The Dark Knight  for a midnight showing before I ride up to dayton with Angel Alford for our flight to San Diego, BJ & Jen Are already there, and I believe the Tricquet Family should be there by now, and the Rowland's will be there early afternoon on friday (sorry for not knowing everyone else's status). I'm getting very excited for what God is going to do through the twenty (or so) people going to the west coast for a little over a week. I'm hoping to get asked regularly "why did you come out here if not for vacation" or something of that variety. Statistics tell us that San Diego County (imagine the 275 loop, with downtown san diego being the center, and you have sand diego county) has less than 6% professing christians, that just seems crazy to me in America, so I am stoked to plant seeds and build bridges with Valley Baptist Church, and Barabbas Road Church, along with the ministry we are doing at the La Jolla indian reservation. Stay tuned for daily updates, pictures, and maybe some videos if your lucky! Pray for all of us!